The Cook
A Novel
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"A slim, bountiful, beautifully written (and gorgeously translated) 'Portrait of the Chef as a Young Man.'" --Nancy Klinke, The New York Times Book Review
One of BBC Culture's Ten Books to Read this March and The Rumpus Book Club Pick for March
Maylis de Kerangal follows up her acclaimed novel The Heart with a dissection of the world of a young Parisian chef
More like a poetic biographical essay on a fictional person than a novel, The Cook is a coming-of-age journey centered on Mauro, a young self-taught cook. The story is told by an unnamed female narrator, Mauro’s friend and disciple who we also suspect might be in love with him. Set not only in Paris but in Berlin, Thailand, Burma, and other far-flung places over the course of fifteen years, the book is hyperrealistic—to the point of feeling, at times, like a documentary. It transcends this simplistic form, however, through the lyricism and intensely vivid evocative nature of Maylis de Kerangal’s prose, which conjures moods, sensations, and flavors, as well as the exhausting rigor and sometimes violent abuses of kitchen work.
In The Cook, we follow Mauro as he finds his path in life: baking cakes as a child; cooking for his friends as a teenager; a series of studies, jobs, and travels; a failed love affair; a successful business; a virtual nervous breakdown; and—at the end—a rediscovery of his hunger for cooking, his appetite for life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fitfully delectable is the best way to describe this brief French portrait of the artist as a young self-made chef from de Kerangal (The Heart). At age 10, impressionable Mauro becomes fascinated by the family's Paris kitchen and begins baking cakes. By 13, he is feeding his friends so they won't have to eat McDonald's and frozen pizza. While attending university, he gets his first part-time job in a restaurant kitchen and eventually decides to forgo a master's in economics in favor of a career in cooking. After apprenticing in several Paris restaurants, Mauro, at age 24, is inspired to open up his own restaurant, in partnership with his jack-of-all-trades father, Jacques. La Belle Saison becomes a success, but after four years, Mauro feels burned out. He sells the restaurant and goes to Asia in search of new gastronomic worlds to conquer and "tastes that give him back his capacity for surprise." Ranging from Paris dining temples to Berlin kebab houses to a 10-diner-only, 10-course restaurant in Bangkok, the author takes readers on a brilliantly realized culinary tour of the world. Though its emotionally distant narrative style and tendency to tell rather than show may turn off some readers, this is a rich novel, particularly for armchair travelers.
